After breakfast with Mascha (bread, cheese, paprika spread, tomato, cucumber, coffee & blackberry jam) we drove into the centre of Freiburg (10 minutes). Parked at Mascha’s university and walked through the streets – very quiet on a Sunday morning with only cafes and restaurants open. Freiburg is known as the "Jewel of the Black Forest" and is a pretty impressive city. Particularly impressive are the Schwabentor and the Martinstor – the old city gates. It’s particularly cute that the trams go through them. Also cute are the Bächle, small canals that crisscross the streets of the inner city. These canals were once meant as a way to fight fires in medieval Freiburg. The locals say that if you accidentally fall or step into one, you will marry a Freiburger.
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| Martinstor Gate, Freiberg |
We walked up quite a steep wooded hill, the Schloßberg, to a lookout over the city. The Münster cathedral pretty well dominates the skyline (its spire in scaffolding at the moment undergoing renovation). There was a tower at the top of the hill but unfortunately, the bridge to it was closed so didn’t quite get there. It’s great that they have a ‘wild’ area like this so close to the city. The hill actually had a vineyard on one side stretching down to the houses below.
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| "Let's go climb a mountain ..." - Schloßberg Hill |
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| Freiberg Münster |
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| Grapes on the slopes above the city |
Back down the hill again and found a Thai restaurant for lunch – food was excellent and obviously popular as it filled up fairly quickly. We followed lunch with an ice cream/sorbet and then back to Mascha’s flat for a restful rest of the afternoon.
It was fine this morning (even sunny at times) but the rain set in again later in the afternoon. Gluten-free pasta for dinner and then an early night.
We all have an early start in the morning, Mascha to head off to Essen and we head back to France.
